CDR Donnie Cochran becomes the first African American commanding officer and flight leader of the Blue Angels
CDR Donnie Cochran becomes the first African American commanding officer and flight leader of the Blue Angels
The Blue Angels IMAX feature will hit theaters full-throttle on May 17, 2024, featuring never-before-seen footage of the Navy’s Flight Demonstration Squadron in action. As you might imagine, an A-list Hollywood documentary with unprecedented levels of access inside one of the most private ready rooms in the U.S. military took several years to plan and produce.
The seed for this project was planted by former Blue Angels commanding officer and three-time flight leader “Boss” Greg Wooldridge with Rob Stone, who directed the 1994 documentary “Around the World at the Speed of Sound.” Initially, this ultra-high definition IMAX project had intended to showcase the squadron’s transition to F/A-18 Super Hornets in 2020. However, COVID-19 created some turbulence with that plan.
Besides a global pandemic and transitioning to Super Hornets and the Super Hercules, the squadron also teamed up with the U.S. Air Force Thunderbirds for motivational flyovers across the country that year. An IMAX film project was a bridge too far in 2020.
The 2021 team, led by Navy Capt. Brian Kesselring, decided that the 2022 season would be a better target date for a production of this magnitude. The 2022 season was more closely aligned with one of the production goals of watching newbies progress during their first year on the team. Additionally, Kesselring said the 2021 cadre of pilots was frozen that year in order to reduce risk during the aircraft transition and first show season with the Super Hornets and Super Hercules.
“The most important factor was safety and getting the team comfortable with the idea,” Kesselring said. “Once we were a go, both the Blue Angels and the production team had to convince our leadership. Ultimately, Commander, Naval Air Forces (NAVAIR), the Chief of Naval Air Training (CNATRA), and the Navy Information Office West (NAVINFO WEST) in Hollywood were all on board with the idea.”
Most importantly, the team was given tremendous latitude to reduce risk for every filming evolution at the squadron’s discretion.
“Trust in practice,” Kesselring said. “I can’t thank the Navy enough for pushing those decisions down to our team. That really enabled us to be flexible and apply operational risk management at our level of while still getting some great footage.”
Despite the delay in starting such a monumental production, it actually worked in favor of both the film crew and the Blue Angels. In 2021, the team was able to provide a VIP flight for actor Glen Powell, who starred in recent aviation flicks Top Gun: Maverick and Devotion. Powell was inspired as a child by Naval Aviation by watching air shows growing up in Texas, and even had an autographed Blue Angels poster on his bedroom wall.
“The Blue Angels (documentary) gives the audience a front row, up-close and personal perspective to the day-to-day life of the elite fighter squadron showcasing the real faces behind the helmets in the cockpit, and the extraordinary team work, passion and pride that goes into being a Blue Angel,” said Powell on his Facebook page recently. “It has truly been a childhood dream to bring this one into the world.”
Very early in production, though, the camera crews were a distraction. It took a lot of getting used to film crews running audio cords and rolling cameras inside the squadron spaces, briefing rooms and flight line, especially for the new pilots.
“We had a lot of discussions with the team about always having the ability to stop the cameras if we ever felt them being too big of distraction,” Kesselring said. “We did that a few times. Some moments are just best kept within the team and the film crew respected that.”
Over time, the trust between the Blue Angels and the production team continued to grow. The level of trust is directly proportional to the majestic aerial footage captured by Kevin LaRosa II, the IMAX aerial film coordinator.
“One of the silver linings to the delay in the production was the ability for our team to establish relationships and trust with the crew and the entire production team,” Kesselring said. “That allowed us to do unique things like put a helicopter inside of the demo.”
“We just came off of Top Gun Maverick and became known for dynamic, high action jet aerial work,” LaRosa said. “Never in the history of motion picture aviation has a civilian camera helicopter been approved to be inside the Blue Angel demonstration.”
“We had to fully trust in the film production team in order to feel comfortable letting them into evolutions that had not been seen before,” said Kesselring. “To get to the level of a civilian helicopter airborne during the demonstration practices, we had to have 100% trust, chair fly all of the maneuvers, guarantee the placement of the helo, and have agreed-upon knock-it-off criteria. In addition, we had a former 3/4/6 pilot, Lt. Cmdr. Lance “Bubb Rub” Benson, riding in the helicopter every time we filmed that way. It took a lot of work to film those sequences safely.”
Because everything was filmed during the regular season’s practice schedule or actual demonstrations, there weren’t any gratuitous second takes. Using NAVAIR-approved camera mounts from Top Gun: Maverick, Sony VENICE-2 ultra-high definition cinema cameras, and Phantom High-Speed Cameras, LaRosa and Aerial Director of Photography Michael Fitzmaurice achieved another precedent: They captured Blue Angel F/A-18 Super Hornets mid-demo at an astonishing 1,000 frames per second.
“There was a lot of consideration that went into how to shoot the Blue Angels in ways never seen before,” said producer J.J. Abrams. “I’m used to doing films that have special effects and you plan these moves, and it’s cool, but it’s not real. What these pilots do is real. There are no second chances. It is truly a life and death demonstration.”
“The director, Paul Crowder, and the rest of the team were outstanding in every sense of the word. They truly became an extension of our team, and at the end of the 2022 show season and my subsequent change of command, it was just as emotional saying goodbye to the production team, as it was for all the other squadron members.”
To watch the IMAX featurette about the production of the Blue Angels documentary, which features those quoted in this article, click here.
To watch the official Blue Angel IMAX trailer, click here.
